Princess Anne advocates building houses in villages, rather than 'large scale'
developments, to solve rural home shortage

Villages must bear the brunt of 240,000 urgently-needed affordable homes if the countryside is to be protected from “large scale” developments, the Princess Royal has argued.

Speaking just weeks after the Coalition discussed plans for two new garden cities, the Princess entered the debate over Britain’s housing crisis by asking planners if it was “really necessary” to build developments of up to 15,000 new houses.

Instead, small developments of between six and 12 homes could be scattered villages to make up the same number, she said.

Her comments at a housing conference in Cheltenham on Friday appeared to be at odds with Government plans to build new towns in Kent and Buckinghamshire to help bridge the housing shortage.

But they were welcomed by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, which said “organic” growth was the right way to increase rural housing.

The Princess, who is patron of the English Rural Housing Association, told around 100 house builders and local authority planners that many councils would rather invest in large-scale developments that are often not cost-effective because so much infrastructure is required.

She said: “Is it really necessary to only think in terms of large scale developments where you might add ten or 15 thousand in a block where you require infrastructure to be installed? I'm not sure it is.

“Our battle is to argue the toss with real house builders that this has real value - and some local authorities, frankly, who would much rather invest in a large scale development.

“Maybe it isn't such good value if you have to build in the facilities that need to go with it.

“You will need a new school, you will need new shops, you will need to create a community centre, but for many of the small scale developments you already have those.

“They may be underused, and they may be your church hall, but with a degree of investment could provide a centre for so many other activities.”

The Princess told delegates at the Rural Housing National Conference that building in existing villages was not only cheaper, but would also help villages survive by helping young families to stay, rather than having to migrate to cities to find affordable housing.

She said research had shown that for every pound invested in new affordable rural homes the value of the "social return" was around £6.50.

“I'm delighted that recent work and assessments has shown the benefits of small developments,” she went on.

“If you have a shop, pub, school, etcetera, you might be able to keep them, because people with families who live there would want those services to remain.”

The Princess also highlighted the benefits of living in villages, rather than on housing estates, saying people in rural communities “unconsciously look out for each other” which “is itself a form of welfare coverage you can't get in many more places”.

The National Housing Federation had told the conference that 240,000 affordable rural homes are currently needed.

They form just a small part of the 250,000 homes in cities and in the countryside that the housing charity Shelter estimates will need to be built every year for the foreseeable future.

Shaun Spiers, the chief executive of CPRE, said: “These are welcome words from Princess Anne. We want a living countryside, not a countryside of commuter villages or retirement ghettoes.

“The important thing is that villages should grow organically, with the consent of those who live there, and that priority is given to creating genuinely affordable homes for people with strong employment or family ties to the area.

“The way to do this is, wherever possible, is to have a community-led process which identifies suitable sites for inclusion in local and neighbourhood plans. With this in place, development is more likely to be well-located and high quality, and therefore win local support.”

Last month, writing in The Telegraph, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, described himself as a "strong advocate of garden cities" as a way of solving the housing shortage.

He said: "Garden cities are a way of protecting the countryside. It is possible to create them without building on any green belt, National Parks or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. And by doing it we could deliver homes people can afford in places they want to live"

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: “This Government’s policy is to support locally-led development. We have put councils’ local plans at the heart of deciding where houses should and shouldn’t go and given communities more say on what’s best for them through community-led neighbourhood plans.”